A Better Kind Of Mediocre, Snap Judgments About The Terps, And The Move To The B1G

I have already written on here countless times about the plight of longstanding Washington Redskins’ fans. Since their last Super Bowl victory, the Redskins have been largely irrelevant…and they haven’t done it by suffering through a bunch of miserable 3-13 seasons. In fact, since my fandom began (1991), they have had only 1 season with a record that bad, and have only been 4-12 twice. Now, that’s not exactly a glowing review, but you would think those types of records would be more commonplace for a franchise that has only been above 0.500 5 times in that same span of time. No, instead the Redskins have wallowed in seemingly endless mediocrity, finishing with a record somewhere between 6-10 and 9-7 an astounding 12 times since 1992. They never seem to bottom-out and start from scratch; always creating the illusion that they aren’t that bad and are only a player or 2 away from contending. Well, as a result they have gotten pretty predictable over the years to me at least. Year by year, I can sniff-out an out-of-the-blue upset of a top-tier team just as easily as an ugly loss to 1 of the league’s bottom-feeders…but not this year. No, this year RG3 has thrown a monkey wrench into my prognostication skills. In pick ‘em leagues and other NFL pools over the years, I usually had my pulse on the Skins from week to week even if my overall pick record continued to submarine. For Washington’s games for the year, I’m 5-6 picking winners and only 4-7 picking against the spread (compare that to picking 2 out of every 3 winners and just a shade under half of the games against the spread correctly for the league as a whole). So, while the Redskins are almost a lock to fall into that “mediocre record” range once again this season, at least there have been a few pleasant surprises along the way. With a weak returning supporting cast, an $18 million cap penalty, and a starting rookie quarterback, I was bracing myself for 1 of those 3-13 type seasons though…I guess I can be satisfied with mediocre just this once.

You can't see me...no, actually we literally can't see you thanks to your blurry f***ing hand.

On a different note, I happened to catch the 2nd half of the Terps game last night…I have caught 2 halves of Maryland games so far this year: the 2nd half of their opening game against Kentucky and the last 20 minutes last night against Northwestern. For both of those 2nd halves, they looked pretty damn good to me, which is a surprise given the state of their roster this past spring. Now, it’s still probably way too early to get all hot and bothered about this team. We’ll wait until ACC play opens up to do that. Also, aside from the 2 halves of basketball I’ve watched, the Terps have played pretty inconsistently in every other game (even in the 1st halves of the 2 games mentioned prior, where turnovers and poor outside shooting plagued them) so far this year by all accounts. But while playing a creampuff schedule so far outside of those 2 games, they have worked their way to 5-1 out of the gate. And while they don’t necessarily possess 2 things that most great college basketball teams have (great backcourt play and perimeter shooting), they also seem to have things that most college teams don’t have nowadays: size and a deep roster filled with athletes. Most college teams (and pro too for that matter) have gone the way of Duke recently, perhaps playing 1 true big guy at a time while spacing the floor with 4 shooters, and the teams with the best athletes don’t seem to go more than 7 or 8 deep for some reason. The Terps appear to have the ability to go 9 or 10 deep if they want, and they have close to NBA size at every position.

Remember last year when Alex Len looked awkward and lost most of the time? This just in: he's turned into a beast.

The odd thing about last night’s ACC-Big 10 Challenge matchup was that it was somewhat of a glimpse into the future of what life will be like once Maryland switches conferences. Could last night’s game be a potential rivalry preview? I don’t know…it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as going into a hostile Cameron Indoor Stadium. It does seem kind of funny that Maryland always considered itself the red-headed step-child to schools like Duke and UNC in terms of basketball, and leaving for the Big 10 resembles Maryland taking its ball and going home. In reality, it has nothing to do with that. It’s all about money, and theoretically if Duke or anyone else in the ACC could get into a conference that would better benefit them financially they wouldn’t hesitate about jumping ship either. As a fan, it’s still tough to wrap your head around though. I can’t envision Maryland students camping outside the Comcast Center to score tickets to the big Maryland-Purdue game…but I suppose only time will tell…doesn’t mean I can’t be salty about it though.

Finally, enjoy a random, creepy, yet hysterically funny (to me at least) picture I came across on the Google Machine today. It's on the house.

So good, girl.